Kenneth Anger Quotations

I've made several films that haven't been shown.

Nobody in America, in the modern generation, has read their mythology or legends.

I've never made a film using dialogue or speech.

I have a problem with censorship by the lawyer - by legal people by the publishing firm, and I may be changing publishers. They don't seem to want to take too many risks with living people.

Some very famous directors have started in the mail room, which is just getting inside the studio, getting to know people, getting to know the routine.

The only person I had any trouble with was Gloria Swanson, and her objections were completely off the wall. She didn't have any legal leg to stand on. And she took me to court, saying that I libeled her. There's absolutely no libel in the chapter on her. She was the mistress of Joe Kennedy.

The music rights at the time cost me $12,000 in 1964 money, which is about double now or whatever. But I cleared everything. I had a lawyer in New York. And it was cleared for use in a short subject, not a feature.

I turned the house into a studio and invited over a bunch of sailors, who were actually students I'd met at USC. They were studying cinema to become technical cameramen. They weren't real sailors picked up off the street, but they were very happy to play these roles in my film.

A lavish colored evocation of Hollywood now gone, as shown through an afternoon in the milieu of the 1920's film star.

If you are a member of the media, you belong to the public. You've made that Faustian bargain with your public. Take me – all of me – I'm yours.

Making a movie is casting a spell.

This flick is all I have to say about being 17, the United States Navy, Christmas and the Fourth of July.

The music rights at the time cost me $12,000 in 1964 money, which is about double now or whatever. But I cleared everything. I had a lawyer in New York. And it was cleared for use in a short subject, not a feature.

Puce Women was my love affair with Hollywood... with all the great goddesses of the silent screen. They were to be filmed in their homes; I was, in effect, filming ghosts.

I hate to say that, but the past was much more fascinating. I don't particularly care for any of the current crop of actors. I don't particularly care for any of the current crop of directors. But I have a lot of friends who are editors, and there are a lot of technical things going on here that are interesting.

I try to remember dreams, and occasionally I'll make a note or two in a notebook if it's something extra interesting. They do mean quite a lot to me, and they don't happen all that often. In other words, I don't have some kind of loud, Technicolor dream every night. But a few times a month, I'll have a rather interesting dream. They're mostly visual - oddly enough, I don't have much dialogue in my dreams. They just don't speak.

Well, everything is constantly evolving and changing. That's what life is all about. But basically Hollywood has lost its focus as a film center. Films are now made all over the world.

A 'death mirror' held up to American culture - Brando, bikes and black leather; Christ, chains and cocaine. A 'high' view of the myth of the American motorcyclist. The machine as totem from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans.

I'm a Thelemite. I believe in Thelema, which is Crowley's so-called religion. There are some practitioners here who do something called the Gnostic Mass. I've been to that a few times, but basically, I'm a loner. I don't really need other people.

I've always considered movies evil; the day that cinema was invented was a black day for mankind.

A film about the love generation - the birthday party of the Aquarian Age showing actual ceremonies to make Lucifer rise. Lucifer is the Light god, not the devil - the Rebel Angel behind what's happening in the world today. His message is that the key of joy is disobedience. Isis (Nature) wakes. Osiris (Death) answers. Lilith (Destroyer) climbs to the place of Sacrifice. The Magus activates the circle and Lucifer - Bringer of Light - breaks through.

Although, of course, my definition of evil is not everybody else's. Evil is being involved in the glamour and charm of material existence, glamour in its old Gaelic sense meaning enchantment with the look of things, rather than the soul of things.

Lucifer is the patron saint of the visual arts. Color, form-all these are the work of Lucifer.